Chapter 256 - Breach

Note : Chapter 260 has been written and added to the queue !

Chapter 256

Red Sands Desert, Duchy of Sarth

City of Darthar

Alexandra frowned as she looked at the hologram. It wasn't exact, but it was continuously updated by Subtlety and Glitch, from the data taken by the Raiders.

She'd done her best to disrupt Sunrise's assault with her remaining missiles, as soon as she'd realized what they were doing. She didn't have many left to begin with, but hell, it's not like she could use them once they were through the shield. She still kept a reserve of three dozen, effectively six salvos, just in case they got any ideas.

Unfortunately, her bombardment hadn't been that effective. It hadn't been pointless, she'd dealt a lot of damage and seemingly collapsed an entire part of the assault on the southernmost wall, but the mages were getting a lot better at shooting down her bombardment, with mages constantly moving between dug in positions, and a constant rotating cadre of war mages for continuous missile defence coverage.

It looked like someone over there had gained a brain, or more likely the duke had taken so much damage an actually competent commander had taken over. Just her luck, trade one dangerous asshole for another.

She couldn't hear them, but she knew drums must have started singing as Sunrise's infantry line shivered, and marched forward towards the shield.

Then things emerged from tunnels, dug in from the fortresses towards the walls. Uh. Battering rams? They looked like them anyway. Though it was more a giant pile of armor on wheels, being pushed by countless slaves, and-

A screen appeared, containing detailed imagery from the Raiders, processed by the two AIs.

"Ma'am, we have some anomalies." Said Subtlety as the image enhanced and Glitch's ongoing analysis appeared on the side. "It looks like there's something under the armor."

"There wouldn't be much point to it if it wasn't protecting something." Answered Alexandra.

"Affirmative, but…" The AI highlighted some of the analysis. "Why would they carry barrels?"

"Bar-FUCK! Cycle all launchers, maximum rate of fire!" The AIs looked at each other, puzzled, but still obeying. "Sunrise got armaments from the Republic, remember? I'm willing to bet this ship that these are the same 'barrels' they tried to spike their supply depots with, when we were faking an attack on them!" Hell, they'd probably salvaged them from undetonated stockpiles from that very fiasco, or maybe some reserves they kept for a second try.

The AIs' eyes widened.

"They're explosives." Said Subtlety as Glitch's avatar vanished into static.

Alexandra almost jumped as the avatar stabilized into…something that had far too many eyes to be human before it returned to Glitch's default avatar.

She ignored it. She could worry about it later.

The ship shook as the missile launchers spoke.

Alexandra made some quick calculations as they fired, and swore.

With the travel time, and how close those tunnels were to the shields…they'd only get two shots. That was it. She idly wondered why they hadn't built it up to the shield itself, or hell, dug through it, but there were probably some good reasons. Enemy sorties, for one, and once they were through the shield the city could use its artillery to collapse the tunnels with impunity. And with geomancy and divination magic, there was probably no way to hide it, at least not without telling the defenders there was something there.

She didn't even need to inform Subtlety. The AI had already queued the order to cease fire after the second volley, and Alexandra watched with increasing worry as the war machines advanced forward.

The defenders were assembling, but they didn't seem to know what to make of the siege engines. Alexandra was about to ask for a line to the count or knight-commander Philia, before swearing.

Damn it, she was getting too fucking used to doing communications with the kingdom through Allya! She didn't have a direct line. And it would take too long for the message to get through the usual channels to be any good.

She ordered it sent anyway. It might help, it might not, but it wouldn't hurt.

Then she focused, as the missiles finished their burn, and began their parabola.

They were now unpowered, just chunks of metal on a ballistic course, but that didn't mean they were completely powerless over their own course. They could dodge. Sort of.

It would fuck up their accuracy, but if those things were indeed packed with explosives, she didn't need a direct hit with a one ton warhead. Not like she would with an airship at least, since the missiles didn't have enough sensors, nor even the timed fuses, at least not on the normal version, to serve as flak.

The missiles couldn't be updated in flight, they weren't guided, but she had uploaded the evasion routines.

They came back down…and Sunrise's mages threw their magic.

This time they were all up, and throwing everything they had onto the oncoming onslaught, spending immense amounts of mana to project their spells further than usual.

Lightning bolts flashed in the air, fireballs lit up the skies, and power beams sliced through the heavens.

The missiles' evasive maneuvers sucked. Badly. Magic allowed bypasses of many of the problems that plagued such weapons on Earth, but not aerodynamics. One tumbled off course and crashed harmlessly into one of the mostly abandoned trenches. Another was simply torn apart as its fragile casing failed under the strain.

Four others came on.

And they died.

Alexandra hit the holo projector with her golem's fist. It wasn't her avatar, but it was no longer the wimpy pseudo-standard golem it once was, and the device's casing dented under the impact.

Then the second wave came on…and Alexandra's eyes widened.

The missiles were in a formation! She hadn't ordered that!

She gave Subtlety a glance, but the AI ignored her, staring intently at the display.

Once again, magic rose to meet the missiles, and once more they tried to drunkenly evade.

Explosions lit up the skies, and missiles died.

Except that this time, they weren't coming as a single, dispersed wave. Three of the missiles were stacked behind each other, using the previous one's dying explosions and smoke as a screen.

One of the mages realized what was happening, and as the second missile died, magic rose to focus on where the third one should be.

Except that it was no longer there, having veered off.

Magic flashed out as the mages desperately tried to adjust.

They failed.

The last missiles came screaming through the air, and obliterated the closest formation flanking the siege engine.

The mass of armor and explosives shuddered…and the barrels came loose under the shockwave.

No one would know where the spark came from. A piece of debris? Friction between the loose explosives? There would be no point in trying to find out the cause anyway.

What mattered were the consequences.

The siege engine vanished in a fireball that dwarfed Alexandra's own missiles.

Thousands of slaves died as their own siege weapon was turned against them.

But the others came on. Four more still rolled forward, towards the walls.

Except that, with this, the defenders knew exactly what they were up against.

As soon as they crossed the shield, absolutely everything the city had came down on the armored behemoths. Magic, ballistas, trebuchets…even the odd cannon.

But Sunrise's mages had accompanied the siege engines. They died in droves, heedless of their own safety, but they still protected the explosive rams, weaving wards around them and throwing their power against the most dangerous of the defenders.

One of the rams detonated, wiping out whole battalions.

Another broke down under the pounding, the sheer weight of fire ripping its propulsion apart and hammering it into scrap.

The second to last was thrown back by a wave of energy, sending it crashing back into the soldiers behind and ripping its wheels apart, but by some miracle remaining undetonated, despite the defender's best efforts.

The last one came to a halt before the walls, the ground crumbling under it as geomancers unleashed a point blank range earthquake.

It was almost enough.

Almost.

The siege engine detonated, though from the defender's actions or the enemy willingly detonating it no one would know.

The ramparts were weakened by the quake. And too much of the detonation's energy was transmitted into the ground by the partially buried siege engine.

The walls came tumbling down.

"Form up the fleet." Said Alexandra as she watched Sunrise's infantry surge into the bridge.

"Ma'am?" Said Subtlety.

"Get the launchers ready, punch us a hole through the defenses. And tell my daughter to be ready for one hell of a fight."

"Milady, unloading the troops-"

"We're not unloading shit. Divert helm control to me, and get me captain Calder on the radio. I don't care if you have to send a strike team to kidnap him. He wanted to pull off this trick once, he'll tell me how to do it now." Alexandra looked a the AI. "There's only one way to stop the city from falling, Subtlety."

The AI met her gaze, and shivered.

"We have to physically plug the breach." Finished the construct.

*****

The duke sighed in relief as the slave soldiers poured into the breach. The defenders tried to form a line, hold it, but they couldn't hold back the tide.

The line began to bend…then his elite units arrived, and it broke.

"You were right, brigadier." Said the duke as he looked at his newly promoted second in command. "It worked. Let us hope the sacrifice will be worth it."

"It will be my lord. It will be."

Neither of them were talking about the slaves, of course. They were there to die, though even their supply wasn't limitless.

But the original plan had been to wear down the defenders, even take the walls, with disposable infantry before throwing in the elite and the mages.

With this…the walls on both sides of the breach were pouring fire into his most elite, reaping a rich harvest. It wasn't rich enough, but each loss still hurt. Badly. Those were troops he wouldn't be able to replace. Not during this war at least.

But that was it. Do or die.

"My lords!" Called an aide as she burst into the command post. "The dungeon's airships! They're coming!"

The duke and the brigadier exchanged a look.

"The artillery can hold them back long enough." Said the brigadier. "And we have enough troops on the ground to defend the batteries."

"What if they try to punch through?"

"To do what? Even if they made it, they could only use their artillery to pummel the city. There isn't enough space for the ships to maneuver into a firing position outside the walls, and they do not have down facing batteries."

"The dungeon has surprised us at every turn. We wouldn't be in this situation if she didn't."

"...Point taken."

They watched horizon warily, as the dungeon's airships arrived.

At first, the duke held the faint hope that they were only there to harass the rear.

Those hopes were dashed as the fortress' artillery opened up.

The ships dodged and weaved around. But they didn't swing around to clear their broadsides. Only their chase guns fired, accompanied by that damned double barreled super cannon on the frigate, as well as the battlecruiser's missiles, fired at point blank range.

Wards sparked, and then failed, as trebuchets and arcane cannons mercilessly pounded them.

One of the smaller vessels shuddered and came apart.

The hellish frigate stopped for a second…and then detonated.

Debris flew everywhere, and a second corvette was caught in the blast. It tried to recover…and failed, plummeting towards the ground.

But suddenly, they were through. The battlecruiser looked more like a wreck than a viable ship, but it still flew.

It was then the duke realized the capital ship had been shielding the small light cruiser. The transport. Why-

The ships made it into the shields, the last few projectiles thrown after them bouncing off harmlessly.

The last surviving corvette and the battlecruiser continued, clearly intending to go over the wall and into the city proper.

The light cruiser broke off.

And angled down.

The duke was utterly speechless as the ship crashed into the breach, jamming itself in the collapsed remnants of the wall, its wards exploding in a cascade of colors as it absorbed most of the impact.

A second passed…and then both broadsides thundered, massacring Sunrise's army on both sides.

His soldiers hesitated, but then began rushing the ship.

And golems boiled onto the deck of the fallen ship to meet them.

Then a roar split the air, shaking the very ground.

A mechanical abomination rose from the wreckage. A metal horror of teeth, claws and flames, unfolding into the air.

And atop it sat the dungeon's boss.

The duke looked at the brigadier.

"You have command, brigadier."

"My lord, I-"

"Stay here. Salvage something from this mess." He looked at the mechanical manticore and its rider. "And get my personal guard ready. I will clear your troops a path."

They exchanged a look.

Both of them knew that, in his state, holding up only thanks to alchemy and magic…

He wasn't coming back.

There was no way the dungeon core wouldn't have equipped her boss with a soul sealing weapon.

"Yes my lord. It shall be done." The brigadier saluted. "Hail Sunrise! Hail the true queen!"

The duke saluted back.

"Do the duchy proud brigadier."

Then he walked out of the command post, surrounded by his knights.

And towards his doom.